In an important new decision, last month, the Seventh Circuit ruled on the meaning of “telephone call” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (“TCPA’s”) private right of action for violations of its do-not-call regulations (47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5)). Specifically, the court held in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services¹ that text messages are not telephone calls within the meaning of this provision—a departure from longstanding FCC interpretations of that term as used in other TCPA provisions.

Steidinger is the first appellate decision to weigh in on the meaning of “telephone call” under § 227(c)(5) in the wake of McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corporation,² a 2025 Supreme Court decision holding that courts are not bound by FCC interpretations of the TCPA. Though Steidinger is cabined in important ways both substantive (i.e., being limited to § 227(c)(5)) and geographic (i.e., being limited to the Seventh Circuit’s three-state jurisdiction), it also offers a key potential defense for companies defending against TCPA lawsuits and is likely to augur an era of increased complexity and ambiguity for companies looking to understand their TCPA compliance obligations. This is especially important given that the statutory damages available under the TCPA’s private right of action can be substantial, up to $500 per violation.³

The implications of this decision are both immediate and far-reaching. As noted above, companies can use this case as a potential defense (or as supporting evidence) to any imminent TCPA lawsuits they face that implicate the use of text messages. This decision may also change how companies are assessing their TCPA programs in general (and whether they want to implement a more aggressive posture to their telemarketing programs, given the changing legal landscape). More broadly, this may only be the first domino to fall in terms of long-established privacy rules developed by administrative agencies that courts may reevaluate and/or overturn in light of recent Supreme Court precedent.

In this post, we summarize the Steidinger decision and discuss its implications for businesses’ TCPA compliance programs. To stay up to date on the latest developments in the TCPA compliance arena, please subscribe to the WilmerHale Privacy and Cybersecurity Law Blog.

Key Takeaways for Businesses

Businesses operating in the wake of Steidinger should bear the following considerations in mind:

1. Maintain TCPA compliance programs. Though Steidinger is undoubtedly an important decision, it is cabined in several important ways. First, the court’s specific holding is limited to § 227(c)(5), and so the Seventh Circuit’s narrow interpretation of “telephone call” might not apply elsewhere in the TCPA (such as the statute’s provisions related to the use of autodialers). Second, from a geographic perspective, the decision is binding only within the Seventh Circuit (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin), meaning that companies with nationwide text messaging operations will likely need to keep their compliance structures in place. And finally, the decision does not disturb state-level mini-TCPAs, particularly those that specifically incorporate text messages into their definitions of “telephone call” (or equivalent term).⁴
2. Potential defense in TCPA class actions. To the extent a business finds itself defending against a TCPA class action lawsuit, Steidinger offers a potential defense to the extent the suit is based on the use of text messaging. This is obviously true for suits under § 227(c)(5) in the Seventh Circuit. But Steidinger is also likely to be valuable both for companies defending § 227(c)(5) suits outside of the Seventh Circuit (where the case will be a valuable source of persuasive precedent) as well as for TCPA suits more generally (where Steidinger’s reasoning, if not its precise holding, could also be applicable).
3. Expect continued ambiguity. Companies should expect continued ambiguity regarding the definition of “telephone call” under the TCPA, both within and outside the context of § 227(c)(5), as more circuit courts weigh in on this question and reach potentially variable conclusions about whether to adopt Steidinger’s holding with respect to § 227(c)(5) or apply the case’s reasoning to other TCPA provisions, or instead continue to defer to longstanding FCC interpretations.

Case Background

This case involved a class action suit brought against Blackstone Medical Services. The plaintiff class consisted of consumers who had received marketing text messages and calls from Blackstone advertising the company’s home sleep tests. The plaintiffs filed suit under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5), which establishes a private right of action for individuals who have “received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity” in violation of the TCPA’s do-not-call regulations. Blackstone challenged the suit on grounds that § 227(c)(5) does not apply to text messages. The district court accepted Blackstone’s argument and dismissed the suit, holding that a “telephone call” under § 227(c)(5) does not encompass text messages.

The Court’s Analysis

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s holding that a “telephone call” under § 227(c)(5) does not cover text messages. The court declined to defer to the FCC’s past interpretations of “telephone call” (in relation to other TCPA provisions) as encompassing text messages, reasoning that, under McLaughlin, it was not bound by the FCC’s past TCPA interpretations, and was instead obligated to “interpret the statute as courts traditionally do under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, affording appropriate respect to the agency's interpretation,” which in this case amounted to a de novo review, given that it involved a question of statutory interpretation.

The court employed a multi-faceted approach to assessing the meaning of “telephone call” under § 227(c)(5). First, noting that the TCPA itself does not define “telephone call,” the court looked to the ordinary public meaning of “telephone call” at the TCPA’s time of enactment in 1991. It observed that the first text message was not sent until 1992, one year after the TCPA’s enactment, meaning that “telephone call” could not have been understood to encompass text messages at the statute’s time of enactment. Taking a broader approach to ordinary public meaning, it further reasoned that contemporaneous dictionary definitions made clear that, in 1991, “telephone call” was understood to “refer[] to communication via sound.”

Second, the court looked to the statutory provisions surrounding § 227(c)(5) for meaning. It observed that other provisions within § 227(c) use the term “telephone solicitation,” which the statute defines as “the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services.”⁵ That definition, the court posits, demonstrates that Congress understood the distinction between a telephone “call” and a telephone “message,” but nonetheless limited § 227(c)(5)’s private right of action to the former. The court also highlighted the statute’s provisions related to fax machines,⁶ contending that these provisions show that Congress viewed fax messages—analogous to text messages as another form of “text-based communications sent by an electronic device through a telephone line”—as a type of message, not a type of telephone call.

Third, the court distinguished other case law holding (or at least accepting the premise) that text messages constitute telephone calls under the TCPA, reasoning that those cases either analyzed different TCPA provisions or relied on caselaw in which the status of a text message as a TCPA telephone call was not in dispute by the parties.

Finally, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that Congress adopted the FCC’s interpretation of “telephone call” as encompassing text messages when it “repeatedly amended the TCPA without challenging” that interpretation. Though the court acknowledged that as one possible interpretation of Congressional inaction, it also observed that Congress has changed other portions of § 227 to explicitly bring text messages within the TCPA’s scope, making it unclear why Congress would not have amended § 227(c)(5) in the same way.

Footnotes: 

1. 182 F.4th 532 (7th Cir. 2026).

2. 606 U.S. 146 (2025).

3. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5)(B).

4. See, e.g., Fla. Stat. Ann. § 501.059(1)(j) (defining “telephonic sales call” to include “a telephone call, text message, or voicemail transmission to a consumer”); N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 399-z(1)(j) (defining “telemarketing sales call” to include “a telephone call or electronic messaging text made directly or indirectly by a telemarketer or by any outbound telephone calling technology”).

5. 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4) (emphasis added).

6. See, e.g., 47 U.S.C. § 227(d)(1).